“Someone locked you in? Are you sure?”
Nikki bobbed her head, her beautiful blue eyes going wide, making her false eyelashes touch her eyebrows. “I’m positive. You can ask any one of us. We all were in the room and the lights went off and the door suddenly slammed shut. Scared the life out of all of us. But I know what I heard—what we all heard. We heard whoever slammed the door turn the lock.”
I blinked. A lock on the outside of the door? Maybe it was a closet they kept valuables in? If it was the janitor’s closet, maybe the janitor locked up their supplies.
Reaching forward, I took her hand. “That must have been so frightening, Nikki. I’m sorry you all went through that. Are you sure you didn’t see who slammed the door?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“But why were you all in there together? Weren’t you supposed to be doing things out here with all the guests? That’s what Margot told us you were all volunteering to do…”
Nikki slid to the edge of her seat and gripped my forearm again, her tone heated. “Yes. That’s what we were supposed to be doing. I wish I’d never signed on to, believe you me! Margot is horrible, and so is Mitzy! I don’t know what I was thinking, signing up to be abused and yelled at for hours on end. I didn’t learn anything useful, that’s for sure. Unless you count all the new curse words I’ve heard. And all for what? Some stupid eyeshadow and primer I still haven’t seen? Oh, it’s been awful!”
Ah. Still more to unpack. The horrible M twins had some explaining to do, I suppose, but I’d table that as well for the moment.
“But why were you all in there at once, Nikki? Can you explain how you ended up in the room together?”
Nikki huffed in disgust. “Mitzy! She sent us a text and told us our swag for helping her as part of the Glitzy team was in there. She said we should grab it before everyone was let inside the venue. So, because we were all feeling pretty let down by this whole experience, we went to see if it might be something extra special. I know it sounds ungrateful, but these last four days we’ve spent helping her prepare for this have been terrible, and I know everyone else will tell you the same,” she said defensively.
“You don’t have to defend how you feel, Nikki,” I soothed. “Now, can you show me the text she sent, please? We need to make sure we share this with the detectives. It could be important to the investigation.”
Nikki paled, biting her lower lip as she dug her phone out and typed in the passcode, scrolling her texts. She handed it to me, her eyes full of fear. “Investigation?”
I took the phone and nodded. “It’s probably not a big deal. But the police are going to want to know why everyone who had an EpiPen was locked into a room in the basement.” I paused for a moment before I asked, “Speaking of, do you have the EpiPen still on your person? Margot said all of the volunteers had pens as a precaution for Mitzy’s peanut allergy.”
Her hand instantly went to the fanny pack she wore around her small waist and opened the zipper. She rooted around for a minute and pulled out the EpiPen. “Why wouldn’t I have it? I don’t understand what’s happening. What’s going on? Why is there going to be an investigation just because we got locked in a room?”
It occurred to me then, no one had explained what happened to Mitzy… Oh, gravy. Guilt from my head to my toes washed over me. I’d rushed into questioning her before I’d explained myself and broken the new about Mitzy.
But I didn’t have to. Nikki slid to the edge of the chair and turned around to face the stage where Mitzy had fallen. It was then she saw the body covered with a sheet, Mitzy’s gorgeous silver shoes poking out from beneath.
Her hand when to her mouth, and her eyes filled with horror.
“Is…is that… Oh, my God, is that Mitzy?” she squealed between her fingers.
Man, I’d really blown this. “I’m sorry, Nikki. It is Mitzy. She had an allergic reaction to something, and no one had an EpiPen—”
“You!” she yelled at me as she knocked the chair down, backing away from me. “You’re trying to trick me! You were trying to get me to say horrible things about her so you could blame me, weren’t you? I’ve seen it happen over and over, but no way! You’re not going to railroad me, lady!”
I rapidly shook my head to dissuade her from going down this path. That seemed such an odd rationalization, but then, everyone was sensitive these days. People went the extra mile to read between lines that sometimes weren’t there because social media had turned everything into an outrage.
“No. No, Nikki. That wasn’t what I was trying to do at all. Please, if you’ll let me explain what I do in conjunction with the Portland PD—”
“You stay away from me!” she cried, pointing an accusatory finger at me as she looked around the room with wild eyes for somewhere to escape. “I want a lawyer! You leave me alone! You’re not going to trap me into saying something I don’t mean!”
Nikki took off toward the other end of the hall, leaving me with egg on my face as I picked up the chair that had toppled over in her haste to get away from me.
Out of nowhere, Higgs was behind me, his strong hands, soothing on my shoulders as he rumbled in my ear, “Can I help?”
I sagged against him in defeat with a shake of my head as I explained what I’d done. “Basically, I blew it. Now she thinks I consider her a suspect.”
“Do
